


'And The Salmon Will Have Gobbled Up His Eyes.' A Choni One Shot Collection

by WhoLenny



Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, One Shot Collection, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21586573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoLenny/pseuds/WhoLenny
Summary: The Choni One Shot Collection I promised, finally delivered. Please enjoy. Peace.
Relationships: Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz
Comments: 14
Kudos: 159





	1. The Gospel Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Laden with religious symbolism and repetition abundant, this is a belated birthday gift to start out our One Shot journey for fellow Choni writer 'endofdaysforme.' The prompt she provided to me was, so eloquently, proposed as 'fluffy shit.' Voila. Happy birthday, Maria.

The bars on the windows make her feel trapped.

They’re cold and foreboding and peeling with paint, the varnished lacquer chipping away over time to reveal the true rot beneath.

The air of impenetrability they exude is unwelcome. But not unfamiliar. They cut scorched grill marks of shadows through the dismal sunlight that spills across the floor and she hates the symbolism of it all.

Still, Cheryl reasons, the gymnasium windows need protecting from wayward balls. They’re not there to keep things out but to _keep things in_.

She feels the dense frigidity of a bar pressing into her forehead as she sits, perched on the very top bleacher, and stares out at the raindrops on the window pane. The melancholy of the act feels normal to her, almost as if she’s done this before.

She blinks, trying not to be so woeful, and reaches out to press at the glass with the pad of her finger. She feels nothing. She presses harder and still feels nothing.

_You’ll never reach the outside like that._

She lets her hand drop, closing her eyes.

_“Wake up, Cheryl.”_

She lifts her head, turning towards the voice and sees no one. It sounded distant to her ears, the thrumming of rain against the window encasing her in white noise, and she thinks for a moment that she has imagined it.

As she turns back, suddenly, a backpack is dropped with a hollow thud onto the bench next to her and she flinches following, with her eyes, the tanned skin of the arm still attached to it until she reaches a face.

She breathes.

“Toni.”

Her pink hair is dampened in patches, from the rain, Cheryl notices, and falls in sinewy strands around her face, meandering over her bare, shapely shoulders and Cheryl marvels at the goosebumps that gather to worship at the site of an errant raindrop on the caramel skin. She wants to press her lips to it and watch them disappear, obeisant to the warmth of her mouth, and her intentions.

She watches Toni’s hair shift against her face as she moves in her seat, draping one little leg over the other and turning her body further to face her. She’s talking; Cheryl can see her mouth moving but no sound resonates to Cheryl’s ears as she watches intently, almost as if in slow motion, as the soft pillowed skin of the top lip bows and curls around her words, pressing decadently to the pouted perfection of the lower, padding open and closed like soft blinks of an eye.

Cheryl is enraptured. The skin is matte, and pink, with hues of orange and brown and she spies a burst capillary, no bigger than a seedling, on the left corner of the lower lip and she wants to touch it. To soothe it. To acknowledge that it’s there and that _she_ has seen it because _she_ likes to study these lips often and _she_ observes them more than anyone else and _she_ notices things about them, and notices _things_ about this girl in front of her because she _likes_ her.

Cheryl Blossom has _noticed_ a girl and she goddamn wants it to be known.

She wants everyone to know.

She wants _Toni_ to know.

The lips peel back slowly on both sides to reveal white teeth, perfectly placed in their rows, and she finally realises Toni has stopped talking.

Instead, she is smiling.

Toni Topaz is _smiling_ at **_her_**.

Cheryl doesn’t know what she has ever done in her years of anger, and bullying, and torment, and misery to _ever_ deserve to see such a sight but she straightens her spine to sit further back and drinks it all in anyway because Toni Topaz is _smiling_ at her.

Creases in her cheeks curve beautifully around freckles painted by _God_ and Cheryl spies a neatly drawn eyebrow, **sisters** not twins, arching inquisition at her and she finally drops her gaze to Toni’s eyes. A shiver ghosts through her. She feels a burning in her very _veins._ A connection is reaching out to her. A purpose. A light. She sees intrigue. She sees curiosity. She sees acceptance and patience and life in those eyes. Hope. Passion and spirit and _joy_ blotting like ink, on a page from which Cheryl _gratefully_ reads, in the warmth of Toni’s eyes and it steals her breath from her.

Toni Topaz is not merely smiling _at_ her.

She is smiling _because_ of her.

Cheryl’s chest feels light and the sensation draughts to her head and she feels a smile tugging at her own mouth and finally, despite the bars on the windows, she feels _free_.

Because Cheryl Blossom has _noticed_ a girl.

And Dear _God_ she just wants _everyone to know._

Cheryl glances at Toni’s hand as it fidgets with a rip in her jeans.

_“Can you hear me?”_

She returns her eyes to Toni’s face.

_Goddamn beautiful._

“I’m so sorry, Toni. I didn’t catch a word you said.”

She doesn’t know why she whispers it but everything seems so **quiet** and she’s happy to let that comfort her for once.

She watches Toni chuckle, stretching out her lithe little arms in front of her and drops them tiredly to her lap.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice calms Cheryl’s heart to a _slumber_. She shrugs a dainty shoulder, leaning her hand on the bench and resting her weight onto it, her face looming closer to Cheryl’s. “I just wanted to see you…”

Lord have **mercy**.

“…You look nice. I like your dress, Cheryl. Blue looks good on you.”

Goosebumps prick this time at Cheryl’s skin but not due to raindrops or steel window bars.

She holds her eyes to Toni’s, and should even the closing sound of Gabriel’s Trumpet ring out to call the earth to its final end, she would not let her gaze be torn from the sanctuary that stared back at her.

She pushes the backpack between them to the floor and usurps herself into its place, pressing her thigh to Toni’s and sighing into the reassuring touch of warm denim to her skin.

“Have you ever read the Bible, TT?”

She slides a pale hand along Toni’s neck, cupping it gently to hold her face and caresses her thumb in worshipping sweeps to the smooth skin of her jaw. Pink hair tickles her fingers and her lips twitch at the sides as she sighs against Toni’s mouth, a small, tanned hand enveloping her wrist in a squeeze.

“Not one fucking word, Cheryl. Why?”

A crease knots Toni’s brow but it is laced with humoured curiosity, her head resting back against the window bars, as she reflects the look of peaceful adoration back at Cheryl.

Cheryl leans her own head, touching the end of her nose to Toni’s.

“There is a passage, from the book of the Song of Solomon, which makes me think of you...”

Toni waits, patiently, her hand travelling in aimless strokes across Cheryl’s wrist.

Cheryl drops her voice to that of a mere breath, dipping her eyes to Toni’s lips.

“...You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.”

Toni’s lips encase her own before a breath can even be drawn and Cheryl sinks into its softness with a delicate, contented groan. She moves her lips in time with Toni’s, unhurried, and slides her fingers deeper into damp hair to tug at it, a gentle whimper bouncing from Toni’s mouth to Cheryl’s tongue as she teases it past her lips.

She stops, eyes closed and mind silent, and revels in the light friction of Toni’s breath against her mouth and presses one more full, pillowed kiss to it.

As she feels skin peel away from skin, she loosens her grip on the hair in her hand and opens her eyes to find Toni’s already clear and unbarred, studying her face with a look soft and saccharine, melting in honeyed amber, more than the rain could ever do to the finest of sugar.

Cheryl Blossom likes a girl.

And that’s the Gospel truth.

She tells her so.

“I scarcely can breathe around you, TT. Let alone think to say more than simply… **I like you. I like you so very much. I _pray_ you like me too.”**

The lighting in Pop’s is dim.

It always is, and she’s used to it, living in the Gothic mansions of her childhood, but familiarity still doesn’t stem the encroaching suffocation of claustrophobia that it brings.

The moonlight, that mists hazily in through the windows that line the perimeter of the building, is tainted a deep blue by the glass and it blends with the neon red of the signage outside.

She casts her eye over the lines of windows that she has now noticed expose the interior from all angles and feels watched, bare, _trapped_.

The darkness of night curtains a reflective barrier to the outer plains of existence beyond this place and she can see nothing of what lies behind those panes.

_You’ll never reach the outside like that._

The all-seeing eye of judgement burrows into her being and she suddenly feels as if she would rather be anywhere else than this panopticon of a chock’lit shoppe. And yet, compellingly, she can’t leave.

She swallows, the steam of a coffee machine heating her face from the side, and allows her eyes to adjust to the aesthetic before her.

The scene feels other worldly to Cheryl, as if not quite real, but she figures that the late hour and the lack of any other patrons in the joint has weaved a warped sense of alternate reality into her head.

The brightly polished chrome edging of the countertop gleams with an almost surgical touch, like the needle of a _syringe_ , and she steps closer to it, lifting a long leg to seat herself on a stool cushion with all the support of a well-worn mattress.

She places her hands atop the counter to steady herself and, yet again, she feels nothing.

Brushing crumbs from her palms she turns to the mass of leather jacket on the stool to her left and tips her head slightly to peak around a veil of pink hair, plucking a strand into her fingers and tucking its silken drapery behind an ear.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Toni looks up from the book she is reading, tattered and stained and lain decrepitly on the counter, her cheeks reddened from the pressure upon which she had been resting atop her hands.

She smiles demurely, her tired eyes brightening at the sight of Cheryl.

“A milkshake, please.” She rasps, her hair falling in waves to the side as she turns to lean her head on her fist.

Cheryl takes a moment to savour the fact that Toni is looking at her like a treasured possession once lost, now found, and she imprisons her own smile in the cage of her front teeth, nodding.

“You got it.”

She turns to order their drinks to the figure of a waitress in the corner.

“A cherry cola and a ch-.”

“-chocolate.”

Red lips tip at the edges.

“…Chocolate milkshake.” Cheryl finishes.

She redirects the smile to Toni with a pivot of her head and shifts on her stool.

“I know your _order_ , TT.” There’s an air of absoluteness in her words and she watches Toni’s eyebrows rise on her face.

“You do?”

Cheryl flips Toni’s hair from her neck, travelling the flat of her hand down over her leather-clad back and rubs gentle furrows across it, up and down, soothingly.

“Of course. I pay attention to what you like.”

She can feel the heat of Toni’s body through her jacket and it complements the warmth of Toni’s blush that fans across her cheeks, a spritely youthfulness radiating from it.

Cheryl wants to feel it against her lips, and so she does.

She leans forward, plumping her lips to a kiss as Toni moves to meet her, her mouth bestowing a small peck to the soft skin of Toni’s cheek.

She feels it bulge beneath her lips and knows that Toni is smiling. So she kisses it again, sliding her arm around Toni’s back to pull her in closer.

“How was your shift at the Wyrm?” She murmurs tenderly against Toni’s face, squeezing the hand on her waist and leaning in to the touch of little fingers as they move to trace the line of her jaw.

Toni leans back just a fraction to catch Cheryl’s gaze but the heat of her skin remains ever present.

“Tiring, like it always is.”

Cheryl’s eyes soften.

“Would you like a warm coffee? Perhaps some food?”

Toni shakes her head lightly, her attention now on Cheryl’s lips as her fingers patter softly across their curve.

“No… no thank you…” Her words are whispered, distracted. Cheryl places a kiss to the pads of her fingers and watches her smile, “… I’m just happy to see you, Cheryl.”

Cheryl believes her. She sees the sincerity in her face.

“Likewise. I’ve been thinking about you. So much. Most of my time is spent thinking about you actually, TT. Seems to be all I do all day of late.”

Toni’s chuckle blows a wind to her red hair and Cheryl feels her own laugh reciprocate.

She watches as Toni presses her lips together, flicking her eyes between Cheryl’s, and shuffles closer, reaching out to press a kiss to Cheryl’s lips.

They linger there, warm breath permeating at her mouth and mixing with her own. She feels the world began to dissolve away and she closes her eyes for a moment to ground herself in this feeling of beautiful repose.

Suddenly, she is disturbed.

A mechanical grating sound hits her ears with unwelcome intrusion, the rhythmic squeaking of wheels and the clatter of metal breaching the calm of her dimly-lit cocoon and invading from _outside_.

She can only attribute it to some rowdy youths gallivanting across the asphalt in a stolen shopping cart.

_“Diazepam. Strong stuff.”_

Cheryl frowns, opening her eyes to glance behind her at the entrance doors. Still their windows are blackened.

She turns back to Toni.

“What did you say, TT?...”

Toni’s mouth is shut, she shrugs.

“…the noise, Toni.”

Toni reaches out to rub the white fabric of Cheryl’s collar between her thumb and finger.

“Oh. Kids, Cheryl. They’re probably high.”

“Oh, I see.”

Toni’s smile returns as she speaks.

“You’re wearing the blue dress again.”

Cheryl finds her focus is tunnelled once again to the simple beauty of Toni’s pretty face and she lets the observation wash over her, slipping her hand beneath Toni’s jacket to rub her palm to the skin of her back. Her other hand reaches out to traverse the small distance between them and squeezes itself to Toni’s thigh, pale fingers touching fleetingly to hot, tanned skin through the ripped hole in her tights.

Cheryl studies Toni’s face with an interest that seems infinite.

“I want to know everything about you, Toni Topaz.”

It’s true. She does. More than _anything_ she’s ever wanted in her whole life. More than a happy childhood or high school popularity or even to hear Jason’s voice say ‘I love you’ once more.

More than _all_ of it.

Swear to _God_.

Because she realises those are fleeting things.

They no longer _matter_.

Her childhood had befallen her and could not be undone, and the sands of High School reputation passed freely through her fingers, the importance of her status decaying more and more with each passing day just like the _corpse_ of Jason, buried in his grave for evermore, no longer able to speak words of comfort to his **sister’s** ears.

They had all been destined to pass.

And, Cheryl finally sees, finally _understands_ , when it comes to it; to the final judgement. When she is lain, incapacitated before her maker, and the figures in white surround her numb body to pass their verdict. None of those fleeting things shall matter. None of those thoughts shall enter her head.

But that face.

That freckled face at which she is gazing with an adoration beyond reality.

That face would enter her head.

And this feeling. This interest. This keen, all-encompassing desire to _like_ a girl. _This_ girl.

That would _matter_.

It felt permanent. A part of her. It would not simply _pass_.

And this girl, this beautiful little warm body of pure **quiet** contentment that sits before her, encased in her pale arms, and the way Cheryl feels for her, the way her heart skips at the sight of her face in her mind or her fingertips tingle at the smell of old leather or how her skin _ripples_ with excitement at the thought of those lips meeting her own…

…that would not be destined to pass either.

“Everything?”

Cheryl finds herself at the **mercy** of that sensual voice once again.

“ _Everything._ I want to know it all, TT. I should’ve asked you sooner. I should’ve done _something_ sooner. Instead of being stubborn and foolish.” She pulls her hand from Toni’s jacket to caress it over her hair, “I am so drawn to you. You are perfect to me.”

Toni takes her pale wrist in her hand and presses tender kisses to Cheryl’s knuckles, holding her hand tightly to her face.

Her eyes are affectionate.

Cheryl pulls her closer.

“You are, TT… **my heart simply yearns to tell you**.”

Cheryl stares at the foot of her bed.

The candle on her night table flickers in a draught and dances shadows across the darkness of the room.

She watches, one pale hand kneading a thumb into a knot on a slim, tanned back, as the light tricks her senses.

Outlines become distorted, disfigurations of familiar objects become sinister fabrications to the eye and shadows create a peculiar artistry before her.

She switches hands, reaching across to continue massaging Toni’s back, and frowns, tilting her head as she examines the wall opposite.

A silk robe is hanging from the door. The naked eye could not see such detail in this darkness, but _she_ knows it to be true because this is _her_ room, and _that_ is where she hangs her robe. But the candle twitches the light once more and, curiously, the line of fabric draping on the door moulds with the coat rack on which it sits; running horizontally behind it.

It looks like a crucifix, she interprets.

A giant, darkened, foreboding cross looming at her from the end of her bed.

She almost wishes to close the door.

_You’ll never reach the outside like that._

She blinks, readjusting her eyes.

A small sigh comes from the body next to her and she smiles, scratching her fingers lightly up her back to delve into pink hair, massaging slow circles into the scalp.

“Your hair is absolutely _gorgeous_.” Cheryl whispers, running her fingers through it to the ends. “So long and wavy and soft.”

Toni’s arm reaches back to grab at her and Cheryl takes the hint, closing the distance between them and enveloping her body from behind.

Toni sighs again.

Cheryl feels the vibration of it through her back and she winds her arm around a toned stomach, resting her chin on her shoulder. She presses a kiss to it softly.

“It was one of the things I first noticed about you in fact.”

One of Toni’s hands reaches up to cover hers.

It’s warm.

“You notice a lot of things about me, huh, Cheryl?”

Cheryl grins at the chuckle that follows these words and turns her head to kiss the skin of Toni’s neck.

“Yes I do. I have an invested interest in all things Toni Topaz. You are my favourite thing to think about.”

“Oh yeah?”

Cheryl detects the coyly guised mirth in the words and pulls Toni’s little body in closer.

“Undoubtedly, TT. Especially in times of sadness. I like to think about what you might be doing. Where you may be going. What you would be thinking about.” She lists her thoughts will ease, resting her face atop of Toni’s comfortably, “…What you’re wearing…What we could be _doing together._ ”

Cheryl smirks at the laugh she manages to garner.

“Oh so you’re _really_ thinking about me, aren’t you?”

Cheryl bites her lip.

“Oh I am, TT. Many a time I’ve looked over at you and wondered… how you’d feel… how you’d kiss… how you _taste_ …” She feels Toni shift in her arms, “…How you moan… how you touch… how you’d beg for more…”

Toni turns in her grasp, twisting the blanket laying upon them in her haste, and pulls Cheryl into a deep kiss.

Cheryl moans, her tongue pressing as tightly to Toni’s as their bodies are to one another and fists Toni’s shirt in her hands.

She is grasping on to something that she doesn’t want to disappear. She knows this. Why it feels so _possible_ , however, she doesn’t know.

She clutches a supple lower lip betwixt her teeth as she pulls away slowly, flicking her eyes up to meet Toni’s gaze and she reaches up to brush the hair from her face.

Her words are as gentle and deliberate as her hands.

“You are so beautiful. You’re truly special, TT. I cannot get you out of my head.”

Instead of answering her, Toni kisses her again, chaste and slow, her fingers drawing airy crosses on Cheryl’s back.

Candlelight is befittingly flattering to Toni’s face.

Cheryl pays astute attention to the features.

The smooth curve of her cheekbone, swooping down into the shadowed valley of her face, the cambered form of her mouth resting plumply next to Cheryl’s, glistening in the soft flame light.

 _Beautiful_.

She presses the pad of her finger to a freckle on Toni’s chin and breathes in.

“I think my mother knows how I feel about you.”

Toni’s hand falters in its aimless sketching across her back.

“How?”

Cheryl licks her lips.

“I think she’s noticed the way I look at you. The way I am around you. How _insistent_ I was that you attend the sleepover here with my Vixen- **sisters**.”

Cheryl’s panic diminishes her voice to a tense whisper.

“Is this something you should be worried about, Cheryl?”

Cheryl peels her face away from Toni’s to meet their gazes.

There is no panic _there_ , she notes.

She wishes she could rid the fear from her own eyes.

“Yes, TT. You have no idea how wrathful she can be. And after what she did when Heather and I…”

She stops, needing to take a breath as the pain thuds dully at her chest, entreating entrance.

Her head swirls, the light playing tricks on her again as the room seems to dissipate.

She closes her eyes, wishing it away.

_“She’ll come around sometime. It won’t be long.”_

Cheryl frowns, her eyes snapping open.

“TT…”

Toni blinks, **quiet** for a moment, her eyes ghosting over the loose hairs surrounding Cheryl’s head. She reaches up a small hand to play with them.

“I mean, are you sure it will be that bad?”

Cheryl can see the attempt at comfort in her face. She can see the effort with which Toni is trying to convince her that she need not be afraid. _That_ face always brings Cheryl comfort.

But Cheryl has a feeling. She knows not why but she has a sensation tickling at the back of her mind like a spider. Something bad is happening. Something bad may even have already happened. And soon she would pay the consequences for her Sapphic indiscretions and this finely woven silken web of comfort will be batted away into nothingness.

“Yes… I have a foreboding presence at my back, TT. Mommy’s not one for showing **mercy**.”

Toni presses a hand to the side of Cheryl’s face and holds her firmly. She is looking at her with eyes that hold a firm earnestness. She needs her to listen.

“Then, Cheryl, I need you to listen to me.”

Cheryl nods, perturbed by the sudden change in Toni’s demeanour but there is still no panic in her voice or eyes.

Just clarity.

As if she knows that her face, _her_ face is what Cheryl will see, what Cheryl will be thinking about when all the world falls to its knees and that she can channel that focussed devotion of Cheryl’s for the use of something _good_ , something _important._

Something she needs to _hear_.

To fucking _do_.

Her thumb presses tightly to Cheryl’s cheek and she gazes into her eyes, intentions loud and clear.

No distractions.

“You’ve gotta get out. I mean it. You’ve gotta.”

Cheryl suddenly feels a chill at her skin. She pulls the sleeves of her burgundy cardigan further over her wrists.

Her bed feels lumpy against her body. Why does it feel lumpy?

_“You’ve got to wake up, Cheryl. Come on.”_

The light of the room grows hazier to her eyes.

It’s so dark in here. The walls feel closer.

“TT… What do you mean?”

“You can’t stay _here_ , Cheryl. What’ll happen to you… You just can’t. _Please_.”

Cheryl feels her heart begin to thrum in her chest and the sensation turns her stomach.

She moves to press her hands to Toni and pull her in but she feels nothing. She presses harder and still, she feels _nothing_.

“TT…”

_“Wake **up** , Cheryl.”_

“…TT, please, I’m scared.”

“You need to _get out_.”

Cheryl doesn’t like that the sentiment Toni is imploring of her is beginning to feel correct in some way.

Not in a way that makes sense to her. But the looming fear in her mind clicks into place at the forefront and somehow she _knows_ what Toni is saying is true.

She nods, her mouth tightening dryly.

“But, how, TT? _How?_ ”

Toni leans forward to press a kiss to Cheryl’s forehead. Her lips brush the skin with a gradually weakening tangibility as she whispers to her.

“You’ve gotta _wake up, Cheryl,_ and find a way.”

Cheryl lets her heavy eyelids fall closed.

“ **Dear God** …” She murmurs, her limbs fatigued and stiffening, “… **I hope there is a way**.”

“Wake up, Cheryl.”

When she opens her eyes she is in _her_ room, but not the previously padded sanctuary of _her_ room in Thistlehouse.

This room, however, is still padded. Quite literally.

She casts her bleary eyes past weighted lids and notes the stained white fabric of the wall next to her bed.

Her bed, on which she lay, discomforted and tense like a _stool cushion with all the support of a well-worn mattress._

She’s beginning to remember.

 _The light is dim. She’s used to it_.

But her eyes are _not_ playing tricks. She spies the crucifix on the wall opposite the foot of her bed and she wants to weep. She hasn’t the strength to, but she wants to weep.

She’s beginning to understand.

“Finally, Girly. You’re awake.”

Her neck creaks inside her head as she turns towards the voice.

Sister Woodhouse is sat, like a beastly harbinger of hell, crouched on the edge of Cheryl’s bed. Her wizened body offers no warmth to her, despite the closeness of its unwelcome presence.

“We gave you quite the large dose of sedative. _Diazepam. Strong stuff_. You clearly needed to be subdued after what you’d been _up to._ ” Her aged voice cuts at Cheryl’s delirium like the rusted blade of a saw and she tries desperately to quash the hopeless pit forming in her stomach. There are two other nuns stood behind her, looming at her back like the disembodied wings of Lucifer in their alabaster nursing Habits, determinant looks upon their drawn faces watching her from _all angles_.

_When she is lain, incapacitated before her maker, and the figures in white surround her numb body to pass their verdict…_

“We’ve been trying to wake you, child. We knew you’d _come around_ _sometime_.” Cheryl watches the artificial empathy flicker from Sister’s face and the lines around her mouth tighten to a sneer. “You are _insolent_ even when unconscious, it seems.”

… ** _her_** _face would enter her head._

Cheryl peers down at her arm. She spies a pinprick from a needle in the crook of her elbow, the sleeve of her _burgundy cardigan_ pulled back to collect around her bicep.

She wants to weep.

A complementary juxtaposition to the deep red tone beckons out at her in the form of a _blue dress_.

The fabric of her collar is _white_.

_“…You’re wearing the dress again..”_

She wants to _weep_.

The **Sisters** of **Quiet Mercy _._**

She feels tears prick at her eyes but she would rather _die_ than let these Spinsters of Evil see her cry.

She leans her head back against her bare pillow and turns to look away from them.

There are bars on her window. Cold and foreboding and peeling with paint.

She is _trapped_.

They are there to _keep things in_.

“Now, Cheryl...”

She turns to meet Sister Woodhouse’s dead eyes as she begins to talk, and a medical cart, laden with _chrome_ _syringes_ , is wheeled out of view with a _rhythmic squeaking of wheels and the clatter of metal._

“…we need to do something about your _naughty_ thoughts.”

A night table, upon which a flickering desk lamp is sat, is revealed from behind the cart as it is pulled away.

A bible sits upon it, _tattered and stained and lain decrepitly,_ her only means of stimulation to pass the days in this circle of Hell.

It lays open, she remembers, on the last page she had been reading.

The book of The Song of Solomon.

A certain passage is underlined in pencil, the neatly scrawled motif of, ‘ ** _my TT x’_** lovingly inscribed beneath.

“We do _not_ deface the Holy Book, Girly. Especially not with the deviant sentiments that _you_ have allowed yourself to become afflicted with. Yes that’s right…”

Cheryl notes the vicious mercilessness of the Sister’s eyes and she swallows aridly.

“…We found your _note_.”

She holds up a torn piece of diaphanous Bible page, ripped from the Book of Revelations, Cheryl recalls, in her gnarled hands and places it next to Cheryl with a calm precision that belies the anger in her gaze.

“Oh, my Child…”

Cheryl heart sinks.

An errant tear is finally allowed to fall across her pale cheek from the reddened strain of her eyes.

She flinches as Sister Woodhouse wipes it with a cold thumb.

“…you truly are sick. We need to heal you. There is _still_ so much work left to be done.”

Cheryl’s lip begins to tremble and she tries to channel the power of it into her hands, fisting them tightly to the point of whitened knuckles.

Sister Woodhouse makes a hollow sigh, standing from the bed.

“Prayer time is _not_ reserved for _that_ sort of litany.” She motions to the scrap of paper resting next to Cheryl’s wrist.

Cheryl watches her stalk slowly to the door, ushering the others from the room as she removes a large ring of keys.

They jangle a grating minor drone.

“…I shall leave it with you, Cheryl. So that you may have a think about your behaviour. And how you can work towards leaving here. You simply **cannot** continue the way you are, oh no…”

Her body disappears behind the steel door as she closes it, but her head remains perched around the side, her eyes uncompassionate.

“… _You’ll never reach the outside like **that**_.”

Then, she is gone. The door echoes to a deafening closure of finality and Cheryl is left, despairing and inconsolable.

She turns on her bare mattress, to rest on her side, her joints aching in tandem with her heart, and brings her limbs into her body; foetal.

Peering down at the prayerful note, written by her hand, she traces the faintly written words of a sheer sincerity that was _not destined to pass,_ with her eyes and finally allows a sob to sound.

_‘ **Dear God, I hope there is a way…**_

**_…My heart simply yearns to tell her…_ **

**_…I like her. I like her so very much…_ **

**_I pray she likes me too...’_ **


	2. Two Fingers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of Strap fic

“Rum and orange juice.”

The music of the club muffled Toni’s words and she watched as the bartender frowned, turning his ear to her.

“Huh?”

She leaned her body further across the bar, her forearms sticking to the memories of spilt drinks upon its wood and enunciated slowly.

“A rum…” She watched as he nodded, “…and orange.”

She dropped her eyes to his busy hands as he pulled a glass from an overhead rack, colored lights flashing across the skin of his face.

She saw his lips moving, the faint hint of his shouted words echoing out to her beneath the thud of the song.

She shook her head, leaning closer still.

“What?”

The bartender appeared to sigh, tipping ice into her glass as he met her eyes and motioned to the bottles behind him.

“Which. Rum?”

“Oh…”

She squinted, casting her inebriated eyes over the bottles to see what measly selection they had and shrugged a delicate shoulder.

“I guess-”

“Try the maple rum…”

The voice had lilted in from behind her, somehow commanding its way above the noise to flit musically at her ears with clarity.

A female voice.

Sharp and eloquent.

A warmth ghosted Toni’s left arm; distinguishable from the other bodies that had been pressed against her at the bar and gone unnoticed; this body held a presence.

A power.

Toni had paused, her eyes drifting past the bartender to search the mirrored surface behind the bar, spying in its reflection a cascade of red hair leaning closely to her ear.

“…it’s exquisite.”

The skin of her neck was blessed with the touch of warm breath and she sucked in a gasp through her nose to calm the goosebumps that sprouted there, the scent of expensive bourbon, and a perfume reminiscent of bruised, ripened pears crushed akimbo into the freshly earthen Spring grass of an orchard and dusted damp with rain, had spritzed at her nose and made her mouth begin to water with sensory compulsion.

She swallowed, shifting as red hair tickled at her shoulder, and turned.

Dark eyes caught hers, hooded and watching, the dim lights of the room catching at their surface to crackle an electricity of astuteness from their depths.

Toni stared, suddenly mute.

The eyes blinked, wafting Toni’s gaze southward in their path and bathing her sight over pale, smooth skin, red hair framing prominent shoulders like carved curls of rosewood on snow.

Further down she roamed, to a rounded bosom. A small waist. To lithe pale arms, cambering with tone as they slid backwards smoothly to rest their elbows nonchalantly on the bar behind.

Toni flicked her eyes back up, her dry tongue now quenched with the sight of a slight sheen of misted sweat gathering atop the bend of the most magnificent red-painted mouth she had ever seen.

The cupid’s bow retracted, Toni noticed as the woman’s head turned to the bar-keep, aiming its shot with the feathered arrow of a commanding, educated cadence.

“And a snifter of maple rum for me…” The eyes turned back to her suddenly, as Toni was admiring the sleek bend of a carved jawline, and looked her up and down before catching her gaze “…two fingers.”

Toni swallowed, the first syllable of her question dissolving on her tongue as it was answered before its inception.

“Cheryl. My name is Cheryl.”

Toni’s skin prickled, her lips tilting to a smirk and a chuckle of incredulity puffing from her nose as she regained her voice, disarmed by her own silent reaction.

“Toni.” She volleyed, nodding, turning her body receptively to the magnetism of this…Cheryl…

Two drinks slid toward them and before Toni’s dulled senses could engage, Cheryl had lifted a pale arm across the bar, a black credit card resting elegantly between two of her fingers.

Toni took note of their length, her chest heaving with the deep breath of a thrilled spike in heart rate.

She squeezed her legs together beneath her skirt and scraped her lower lip with her teeth, wrapping her own fingers around the frosted glass of her drink.

She mixed it with her straw and leaned closer.

“You didn’t have to do that. But thanks, I guess.”

She had never been one to fall for audacious displays of wealth, the taste of late stage capitalism and its socio-economic inequalities were bitter to her tongue, and her soul, and she was happy to appear unbothered.

After all, she was never one to turn down a free drink.

But something about the sheer radiation of control and suave perfection this woman displayed had sent Toni’s philosophies retreating as she submitted to the gaze of a preppy, Heathers-looking, rich bitch and resigned herself to the notion that she would gladly kneel before those long legs beneath that green silk dress she was wearing and beg for the pain of a heel.

Cheryl lifted her own glass, swirling the liquor, her eyes never leaving Toni’s as she tilted her head and studied her once again, taking her time to explore the plains of Toni’s body with a scrutinising eye.

She smiled, red lips stretching widely like the goddamn Cheshire cat, and Toni watched as a pink tongue came to rest between white teeth, a sharp knowingness flickering in Cheryl’s eyes.

Curiouser and curiouser….  
Toni stood, eyes glued to that red mouth, beguiled by sheer body language alone.

“You’re welcome, Toni...”

The sound of her name coated in the richness of affluent annunciation made Toni’s thighs twitch.

“…You here alone, Kitten?”

Toni shook her head.

“I’m here with a friend, but he’s…”getting fucked, “…outside.”

Cheryl’s smirk widened, her teeth bearing and clinking against her glass as she lifted it to her mouth and shot it back in one.

A bead of liquor shined against her lower lip and Toni could just about fucking taste it.

Her heart clamored in her chest and she clamped her front teeth around her straw, sucking at her drink.

Cheryl caught the drop on her lip with her teeth slowly, reaching up to drift her fingers through the length of Toni’s hair, parting the strands with the rub of her fingers as she stopped to play with the ends.

“Perfect,” She purred over the music, drifting her long fingers downward to tickle at the skin of Toni’s arm, wrapping them around her wrist, “…come with me.”

\------------------------------------------------------

Any song could’ve been playing.

Literally anything.

She recognised it.

But she didn’t care.

In fact, Toni didn’t give a single fuck.

All that she was aware of was the low thud of a bassline in her chest and the slow grind of Cheryl’s crotch against her ass as she let her head fall back on a pale shoulder, eyes shut, working her hips in rhythmic time with it all.

She felt Cheryl’s breath against her ear, red lips parted and brushing against it as they moved, a tickled shiver running down Toni’s neck as she felt her nipples harden further each time.

Fuuuuck.

She bit her lip, a pair of capable hands running gently over her ribs, brushing a bold touch to the side of her breasts before traversing the toned lines of her stomach, finally coming to rest at her hips in greedy handfuls and pulling her body backward, tighter.

Her lips tugged upwards at the sides.

How the fuck had this happened?

Two hours ago she’d been crushed into the back of an Uber with Fangs and his coked-up friends, her phone light illuminating her face as she’d scrolled online for a cheap birthday present for him that she’d already lied - earlier that evening - had definitely been ordered but had been delayed in shipping, and concocting a plan to get the fuck out of this goddamn club she’d be paying 15 dollars - that she didn’t have - to get into.

A shitty day at work, ogled on the subway by a pervert, ramen and bootleg vodka for dinner, and nothing to look forward to tomorrow but a dirty fucking hangover and the sound of her landlord hacking phlegm out of his apartment window.

And yet, now, here she was, tooth-numbingly drunk and warm skin tingling as a statuesque redhead lesbian dry-humped her from behind.

What the actual fuck.  
Things were looking up.

She let out a small, smug laugh, silenced by the music, and smirked, sinking her teeth further into her lower lip as Cheryl wrapped an arm around her, turning her around.

The look that met Toni’s eyes was one of pure, feral lust.

Much, in fact, like the pervert on the subway, she mused.

However, unlike the pervert on the subway, Toni wanted that look to burn within those brown eyes. To burn and smoulder so hotly, and so commandingly, that its sheer heat peeled back her clothes to mere cinders and licked at her naked skin like flames as she was pushed up against a wall with her legs pulled apart and given something to really fucking scream about.

Her own eyes darkened, her hands smoothing their way over Cheryl’s collarbones to rest her arms on slim shoulders, clasping her wrists together behind red hair.

She wanted to feel.

Dear God did she want to feel something.

Something different, something depraved.

Something other than her shitty little rank-and-file existence. She gave too much to this fucking world.

She hadn’t wanted to come here. She didn’t want to spend her first night off in weeks babysitting Fangs.

It was about time she got what she wanted.

Tonight was her turn to fucking take.

Take it fucking all.

“You are so fucking hot.”

She didn’t bother to raise her voice, hoping instead to draw Cheryl’s gaze to her lips, licking them slowly and watching with satisfaction as Cheryl’s eyes grew hooded.

She felt two hands grip possessively at her backside and she smirked, leaning up to press her face to Cheryl’s, hot breath panting against her lips.

Even in heels she had to crane her neck, and although she’d been afflicted with petite-ness compared to others her whole life, she found that the nature of this slight height difference was making her fucking wet.

Filthy.

She smirked wider.

She noted a brief flicker of Cheryl’s eyes to hers before Cheryl closed the gap between them, leading with her tongue, hot breath ghosting into Toni’s mouth before it was engulfed in red lips.

She fluttered her eyes shut, pressing her hips against Cheryl’s and earning an encouraging squeeze of her ass in return, the vibrations of a moan humming at her lips as she rolled her tongue slowly and turned her head to the side.

The buzz of the booze and the beat of the music and the sheer skill of Cheryl’s mouth on hers, the burnt taste of sweet maple rum passing between them, sent Toni’s head into a cloud of white noise as her hips moved of their own accord and she pulled Cheryl’s head closer with her wrists, kissing her deeper and groaning into it.

Oh, you’re getting laid tonight…

…get whatever you want

Enjoy yourself…

Toni pulled her mouth back, her lower lip caught between Cheryl’s teeth as she reluctantly followed suit, and she smiled, glancing down at the mess of smudged lipstick she had caused.

Fucking hot  
She pressed closer, dragging her lips in a lazy path of pecked kisses across Cheryl’s jaw and breathed a moan into her ear.

A hand slowly slid up her back to her neck and she smirked as it tangled itself into the waves of her pink hair and stroked at it gently.

“You wanna get more drinks and maybe go somewhere… a little more private?” Toni slurred, feeling a hot mouth tickle at her ear, teeth nipping at it softly.

“Sounds delightful.” Cheryl all but groaned in reply.

Toni shivered, teasing her hand along the length of Cheryl’s arm to entwine their fingers.

“Good. You’re buying.”

\-------

Toni clung to the sinewy muscles of Cheryl’s back, scraping her nails across pale shoulder blades as a tongue lapped eagerly at her neck and each wet swipe sent a pulse straight to her clit.

Her held fell back, hitting the wall behind her and she fought a groan in her throat.

She didn’t know how long they’d been making out in the bathroom stall, enough, she pondered, to make the smell of bleach and vomit on tile seem unimportant.

She hissed as Cheryl’s teeth sunk into the skin of her neck, feeling the sting of blood vessels breaking beneath it as she sucked a mark to it and pulled back with a smack.

“Fuck sake. Guess I’ll be wearing turtle necks for a week.” She grunted.

Cheryl wound her arms around Toni’s back, holding her firmly to her body and licked across the shell of her ear.

“Get over it, Princess. I’m a biter.”

Toni felt the warmth between her legs throb and clenched them around Cheryl’s thigh as it pinned her hips to the wall.

Fuuck.

“I’m so wet for you.” Toni breathed, biting her lip as it slid into the beginnings of a smirk, already smug at the effect she knew it would have.

Filthy.  
She delighted in Cheryl’s reaction as she watched her pupils dilate, smudged red lips falling open as she stared at Toni with hooded eyes, her chest heaving with shallow breaths of arousal.

“…Say it again.”

Toni hummed, releasing her lip from her teeth with a slow, wet pop.

“I am so…” She whispered slowly, affecting the end of her sentence with a breathy moan, “…fucking wet… for you.”

In a second, Cheryl’s hand wound into her hair, pulling a handful of it sharply and, as Toni’s groan was enveloped in a fervent kiss, she felt fingers scraping at her thigh, nails catching in the cords of her fishnets, roaming higher to slip keenly under her skirt.

She shifted to allow them room to roam, her breath hitching in her chest as she kissed Cheryl with languid enthusiasm.

They dipped beneath her waistband, indulging themselves with a touch to the smooth skin of her stomach before diving downward.

It’s your night, Toni

To take it all.

Don’t settle for a quickie in the bathroom.

Indulge…

Toni snapped a hand to Cheryl’s wrist quickly, pulling her mouth away.

Cheryl, in response, let out a dissatisfied whine as her voice dropped to a wanton octave.

“Ugh, Toni. Please, I just want to watch you cum.”

Holy shit

Toni stifled an astonished gasp, raising an eyebrow as she pressed a hand into Cheryl’s shoulder to push her back, meeting her gaze.

“Wait-”

“-Are you too drunk to consent?”

Cheryl frowned as she spoke her question, a battle between worry and disappointment flashing across her face as her eyes flicked frantically back and forth between Toni’s and her wrist fought to remain still in Toni’s grasp.

Toni rested back against the stall wall, a pink flush dusting across her panting chest.

She rolled the back of her head across the wall as she shook it.

“No.” She licked her lips as a small smirk broke out across them. “No, I’m not. Are you too drunk to come home with me?”

She watched Cheryl’s eyes, blackened by her pupils and barely even open at this point in her lust, and adjusted her back against the wall, pushing her breasts up invitingly.

Cheryl fell for it immediately, her eyes darting downward and her jaw loosening slightly, her salivary glands clearly working overtime in her mouth.

“God no.”

Toni raised a teasing eyebrow.

“God no, you don’t want to?”

“No, God no I’m not too drunk to go home with you. Of course I fucking want to.”

A snorted laugh left Toni’s nose as she rolled her eyes, reaching up to push a lock of red hair behind Cheryl’s ear.

“I know, I was kidd-”

Cheryl pulled back, dropping Toni from her tiptoes and turned to rifle through her clutch that had been discarded onto the toilet cistern.

Toni took the opportunity to gaze across the round contours of Cheryl’s backside, her eyes widening as she suddenly remembered the dirty pair of yoga pants she’d left hanging over the shower curtain rail.

Shit

“I just need to tell my friend Veronica that I’m leaving with you.”

Toni nodded, fluffing her hair from underneath, and admired the new tear in her tights.

“Veronica?” She murmured, pressing herself into Cheryl’s back and dotting nips with her front teeth across the white skin exposed at her shoulder.

Cheryl reached the hand that wasn’t typing her message behind her, gripping it into Toni’s hair and pushing encouragingly on the back of her head.

“She hot?” Toni mumbled against her skin, soothing the reddening bite marks with her tongue, “She wanna join?”

Cheryl scoffed, clicking her purse shut, and turned in Toni’s arms.

“You joke. But yes, she is and yes, she would.”

She lifted her hand, grabbing at the sides of Toni’s jaw and pulling her closer to suck at her lips with a groan.

“But you’re all mine for the night.” She pressed another heavy kiss to Toni’s mouth, lathing a swipe of her tongue across it. “I trust your bed sheets were laundered this morning?”

Toni’s eyebrows shot up on her face, sheer disbelief at the audacity of this woman almost eclipsing her desire to see her that red mouth between her legs.

Almost.

“Yes.” She gawked, appearing offended, “Of course they were.”

They were not.

“Parfait…”

The French rumbled from Cheryl’s chest with fluent ease, tumbling from her rouged mouth like the waters of The Seine itself to drench Toni’s inner thighs.

Jesus.

She watched as Cheryl stared at her mouth, a slow smirk gliding charmingly up one side of her pretty face, the pale skin tinted red at the cheeks.

Even under the harsh fluorescent bulbs of the bathroom she looked as if she were carved from marble.

You hit the jackpot.

The fingers loosened on her jaw and she swallowed as Cheryl wiped the pad of her thumb across the lipstick stains she’d littered onto Toni’s lips.

“…I’ll order us a cab.”

**Author's Note:**

> Alas, the FULL prompt given to me was 'fluffy shit, but Cheryl's actually in the SOQM.' Feedback is always welcome as per usual. Prompts will be gratefully accepted but not guaranteed to be written.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. Find me on twitter @lenny_who if you enjoyed being emotionally abused.  
> Be careful what you wish for.
> 
> Peace x


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